Pair of crackers: Sisters hold annual chocolate egg drive for kids in hospital

TWO young sisters from Dublin have helped to bring the community together through their idea to collect and distribute Easter eggs to children in hospital.

Lauren Metcalfe (16) and her younger sister Ellamay (7) are to give roughly 820 Easter eggs to the charity Children’s Health Foundation at Temple Street, Dublin this afternoon, which will distribute them out to patients across its various hospital wards.

People have either donated eggs to the youngsters from Ballymun, a suburb in Dublin, through Revolut or dropped them off at Nan’s Centra & Off Licence, the shop where their father Thomas works as a delivery driver.

Mr Metcalfe (36) said the initiative, which was sparked by Lauren following an injury a decade ago, has helped to bring the community together.

“Ten years ago, Lauren broke her leg just before Easter and she had loads of Easter eggs (but) she wasn’t a big chocolate person,” Mr Metcalfe said.

“She said to me, ‘Dad, can I bring some of these to the sick kids in the hospital?’

“I think at that stage, it was 18 or 19 eggs we brought, but for her to do that herself was an amazing thing; it made me feel proud.”

The next year, the family decided they wanted to do “something bigger” and it has become somewhat of a family tradition now.

“There can be a lot of bad publicity about Ballymun, but things like this help the community come together and they’re always there to help,” Mr Metcalfe said.

He added there has even been international interest in the project, with a friend who owns a company in Turkey called Get Slim in Turkey having donated €100 towards it each year.

Lauren said the family received close to 1,000 eggs last year and it was hard to fit them all in the van that was transporting them to the charity.

“Last year was the biggest one because we had 993 eggs and it was crazy to see how many people actually donated eggs,” she said.

“It was even hard to take a picture of the eggs as we couldn’t fit them all in.”

Despite her young age, Ellamay is not a novice, having been involved with the project since she was two.

When asked about why she wanted to help her sister, she said: “We get to donate to the sick people”.

Each year the girls have participated, the charity has given them a certificate.

Lauren said: “Last year, I got a medal, which had the charity name on it.”

Mr Metcalfe added: “(There) is a really nice woman from the charity (called Alfreda) who has been looking after us for the last 10 years.”

One of Mr Metcalfe’s friends is to lend the family a van, which they will use to transport the eggs to the venue this year.

If people would like to donate an egg, they can either reach out to the charity or message Mr Metcalfe on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.metcalfe.14.